Friday, April 26, 2019

494: THE SALT LAKE CITY TEMPLE CLOSURE

The plans for the next four years:



Salt Lake Temple will shut its doors on December 29, 2019 and remain closed for the next four years as major renovations are underway to address safety and seismic concerns. The church plans to remove some buildings and change the look of Temple Square as part of the process. The largest project will be placing the entire granite temple on base isolators to survive the next big earthquake. "Monday morning on Dec. 30, we're going to decommission the temple," said Brent Roberts, the church's director of special projects "So that means we go in and we take out the sacred emblems of the temple." Meanwhile, the well-known weekly meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve traditionally held in the temple will take place in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building during the closure.


The Salt Lake Temple closure announcement was made last Friday on April 19th. The day that Christians around the world observed the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. It was the day that Jews began to observe the Passover. On that day, I was up on the mountains to watch the sunset which marks the beginning of the Passover. Below is a photo taken of my friend who was with me.  
Photo taken at the moment when Passover began on April 19th, 2019

A Temple is where Heaven and earth meet, both symbolically and literally. The purpose of a temple (meaning an actual temple that is commissioned, ordered, blessed, accepted, and visited with His presence) is to substitute for the temporary ascent of a mortal into God’s presence. A real temple becomes “Holy Ground” and the means for making available to faithful people in every state of belief and hope the opportunity to receive, by authorized means, the same covenant, obligation, association, expectation, and sealing through an authorized and binding arrangement in sacred space. This is the same thing they can receive from God directly if they enter into His presence while still in the flesh. In effect, the temple becomes an extension of heaven. God, angels, and mankind are able to associate there as in Eden. It is a return to Eden, where God walks in the cool of the day (Genesis 2 : 17). The ordinances or rites of the temple are presented in ritual form. This is required. God’s House is a House of order because it is reoriented to point away from this world in order to reflect the order of heaven and the actual eternal ascent into His presence. The volume of information conveyed by God would be too vast to set out in non-ritual form.

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"The temple ceremony is not the real thing. It is a symbol of the real thing. The real thing is when a person actually obtains an audience with Jesus Christ, returns to His presence, and gains knowledge by which they are saved."
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In ritual, it is possible to convey a great body of information with symbolism, metaphor, relationships, and types that work on the mind of man the same way that visionary experiences directly with God convey. The mind is expanded, and the ritual allows something of God’s viewpoint to be transmitted into the mind of man. The temple has only one real purpose: to convey God’s promise to exalt those who experience it, provided they abide the conditions for exaltation. It portrays the real, second Eternal form of ascent in a way that gives the initiate a promise: that if they walk in the path shown them, they will arrive at the Throne of God in the afterlife. The ceremony of the temple is not the real thing. It is a symbol of the real thing. The real thing is when a person actually obtains an audience with Jesus Christ, returns to His presence, and gains knowledge by which they are saved. The temple is a revelation of the process by which one may pass through the veil to God’s actual presence. The purpose of a temple is to allow the communication of great knowledge and greater knowledge to restore what has been lost since the time of Adam, in order for people to rise up and receive the Holy order. A temple in Zion is to be a place where He can come to dwell and not merely to manifest Himself to some.




Tuesday, April 9, 2019

493: NEW CHILD BLESSING RECORDS NEEDED?

The General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ended a few days ago. We were advised and forewarned to Buckle Up. However, if you watched.. you probably didn't need to even need to wear seat beat.. or even use a carseat. (Unless you live in Tooele, UT and you heard  announcement of the 21st Utah Temple will be built in your city. Unfortunately you were not able to share your joy when it was announced due to the sacred nature of the announcement.)

However, even though Conference was void of any changes requiring vitamins, or a portent snowstorm/blizzard.... the real bombshell change was revealed (no pun intended) a few days before Conference. On Thursday, April 4, 2019, the First Presidency announced the revelation reversal which we are told that "policy changes come after an extended period of counseling with our brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and after fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord on these matters."

Here is part of the new policy:
A nonmember parent or parents (including LGBT parents) can request that their baby be blessed by a worthy Melchizedek Priesthood holder. These parents need to understand that congregation members will contact them periodically, and that when the child who has been blessed reaches 8 years of age, a Church member will contact them and propose that the child be baptized.

The wording used in most blessing is the following "The name he/she will be known by on the records of the Church is: then full name is stated".  Prior to the blessing. the parents fill out an official Child Blessing Record and give it to the Bishop. See example below. I have highlight the entry boxes for the names of the Father and the Mother. 


...........
So my question is. Will these children then have their names put on the roles of the Church? 
The Church now has officially allowed same sex parents to have their children receive this same blessing. Will a new Child Blessing Record need to be printed by the Church Publishing Department to allow for this new change in policy?

Here is most likely the changes that will need to be made. Here are samples. These are NOT official.






Interesting times in which we live. 



Thursday, April 4, 2019

492: "BUCKLE UP" ... NELSON SAYS "THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME"

This weekend's General Conference Preview in the Deseret News Special Edition

FRONT PAGE



President Nelson said this week that the Lord has blessed us with "revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge..that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal" We are all eyewitnesses to revelations from the Lord as He guides the affairs of His Church.

So BUCKLE UP... THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME.

If you want more information, I suggest picking up your own copy of this special edition. since it would be hard to blog about everything..

However, I do want to mention one of the articles that was covered again in this special edition. It is the story about Mercy Makau, her daughter Gloria Nashipai and her son William Mbogo. See below the full color photo. This was the same selected family from Kenya that President Nelson went to visit in their home and he give them the gift. The gift was a the picture of himself taken with his two counselors, President Oaks and President Eyring.






Here is the link:
444: THE PROPHETS "MINISTERING" GIFT TO AN AFRICAN FAMILY

491: A CHANGING GOD?...OR CAVING IN TO SOCIAL PRESSURE.



NOVEMBER 2015 POLICY:

Same-sex couples are labeled as “apostates” and are subject for church discipline and their children will be prevented from being baptized until they turn 18.



COMMENTS ON FEBRUARY 3, 2016 | PRESIDENT RUSSELL NELSON

"These policy changes come after an extended period of counseling with our brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and after fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord on these matters".

"Each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation," Nelson, next in line for the Mormon presidency, told the faith's young adults in the first official explanation of the hotly debated policy's origins. "It was our privilege as apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson."

Nelson explained that revelation from the Lord to his servants is a sacred process.

"The [three-member] First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together and share all the Lord has directed us to understand and to feel, individually and collectively," he said. "And then, we watch the Lord move upon the president of the church to proclaim the Lord's will."

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Fast forward 3 years..announced today

APRIL 4. 2019 REVERSAL OF POLICY:

Same-sex couples are no longer labeled “apostates” and will not be grounds for church discipline and their children can now be baptized. 

A question: For any of those members who were excommunicated because of a same gender marriage- will the church now reach out to them and offer to reinstate their blessings and bring them back into the fold?

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Below is an email comment from a friend:

Or what about those youth who may have committed suicide in despair over this policy? Will they be offered a second chance at life here?

"That we be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive." Ephesians 4:14

“to and fro” | ADVERB | In a constant movement backward and forward or from side to side.
“toss” | VERB | To throw (something) somewhere lightly, easily, or casually.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

490: NEW LDS SECURITY TRAINING CENTER WITH FIRING RANGES TO REPLACE PART OF THE BISHOP STOREHOUSE


The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plans to remodel part of their 67,600-square-foot Bishop's Storehouse located at 390 South 5200 West in Salt Lake City and convert it into the Church Security Department Training Center complete with two shooting ranges and facilities for teaching about defensive tactics and the use of force.

Below is the headline and photo that was reported today in the news.








Eric Hawkins, the Church spokesman, told the Salt Lake Tribune “Growing demand on these types of facilities by all security and law enforcement services has required that church security find or construct new space for their training,” 



What once was a brand new Bishop's storehouse build just about 10 years ago with the purpose of  helping the poor and the needy is being converted into a Security Training Center complete with an in- house shooting range.

Lately the Church curriculum has focused on having it's members become more like Christ, so to have our tithing money go towards building a state of the art shooting range seems contrary to Christ teachings. I mean you don't have to look too hard to find scriptural references like "turning the other cheek", "loving your enemies" and "blessing those who curse you", even reading the stories of Christ rebuking Peter for cutting off the guards ear and then healing it. And heaven forbid, trying to build Zion where we read in D&C 45 about "not taking up swords against your neighbor."

Sad day that we live in that storing food for the needy become secondary to having a facility to teach how to use force. Anyway, maybe they will rededicate the building and call it the Porter Rockwell Defense Center and Shooting Range.


Sidenote:
We always tell our kids when they are practicing the piano that practice makes perfect. Learning muscle memory is important. If you practice enough, then thinking becomes automatic.

So if Church Security is going to now be practicing at the Church's own firing ranges. I wonder if they will use the typical targets.